Media and Hybrid Media

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Abstract

Contemporary media are characterized by fluidity and remixing of hitherto separated media formats creating unstable hybrids such as the motion comic. By reviewing canonical media theory literature (McLuhan, Castells, Latour, Kittler, Manovich Thibodeau, Bolter and Grusin and others) the article addresses the question: what is the media theory context of hybrid media? This theoretical sketch covers media extensions, the materiality of media, psychotechnologies, and networks. Media hybrid processes are identified across these layers, both in historical context and within the operation of digital media, remediation, and softwarization. Finally, the hybridization of media design through deep remixing hints at the fluidity of design practice. Overall, media hybridity challenges the entrenched notion of separation of media. Hybridization ripples across all layers of media—material, logical, and cultural/artistic.